Creating the most effective newsletter sign up form

7th March 2018

Written by

Ignacio O'Mullony

We tend to think that our business is great and people will love to keep in touch with us. Yet, many visitors to our site don’t care too much about us, and they will leave, maybe forever, as soon as they have found what they came looking for.

That’s why having a way to come back to them to start a longer (and hopefully profitable) relationship is so important. And what better way to keep in touch with someone than by getting your messages into their email inbox? In fact, behind a well planned email marketing strategy lies an often underestimated stream of revenue. It’s hard to describe that magical moment when you see your sales increase after pressing the send.

However, building a mailing list is not an easy task to do, and many companies give up before exploring the possibilities of this powerful marketing tool. One of the obstacles we often hear is that they can’t get visitors to sign up to the newsletter. So in this post we are going to see how we can transform an unappealing contact form which remains unnoticed into the first step of your new sales funnel.

The basis

Think carefully before designing your sign up form. Do you really need that all information from your potential customers? Each marketing strategy has different requirements, and maybe for your business it’s vital to know the phone number or the address of your list members. However, if your goal here is to build a mailing list, less is more. Name and email are more than enough.

Too many fields mean less sign ups.

The reason why

Why should someone sign up to your newsletter? Just because they’ve visited your website doesn’t mean they’ll give you their email address. Offering them something useful in exchange tends to report the best results. For example, a discount, an ebook or a pdf document where you share some of your expertise, tips, or guides to achieve something. Try to think about what visitors are looking for in your site and offer them something they would like to exchange their email for.

You’re in safe hands

Users are aware of the existence of junk mail and are tired of finding it in their inbox. Your visitors need to know that you’re not going to sell their data or bombard them with spam. All the opposite; your emails should be a mix of valuable content which can lead to sales every now and then. So remind them! This can be the final push they need to join your newsletter.

Now what?

You have an appealing and brief form ready. Now is the moment to show it to your visitors. Although a pop up window can be an option, it can be quite annoying. You should only use this way if you’re sure you’re offering something very appealing (a discount if you’re an ecommerce company, for example). However, often it’s better to have your form in a visible part of your site, or even at the end of the blog posts or best pages. If the visitors have enjoyed that page, there’s a big chance for them to sign up to keep hearing from your company.

In conclusion

Each site is different and requirements vary. While there’s not a ‘perfect’ sign up form, and definitely what can work in a certain website may not work on yours, these are a list of best practices. Hopefully this post has helped you to get some good ideas about how to improve what you are doing already or have a clearer idea about how to start your mailing list.